Football

Updated roster reveals KU football changes

Kansas head coach Charlie Weis watches his team warm up for Baylor on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013.

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The Kansas University football team offered a sneak peek at the 2014 squad when it released an updated roster on its website Tuesday.

The most significant revelation was that offensive lineman Dylan Admire, who started two games at center last season, dropped some weight and moved to tight end/fullback.

Admire, a 6-foot-3, 230-pound junior-to-be from Blue Valley West High, is down 50 pounds from his weight at this time last year. Admire earned his shot at center — his high school position — because of his intelligence and work ethic, but his lack of size was too much to overcome up front.

To accommodate the position change, Admire switched his number from 66 to 86.

Other notable nuggets from the updated KU football roster include:

— The absence of Ricki Herod, Brian Maura and Neal Page, all former scholarship players who are no longer with the team.

— The absence of H’s or F’s from the position column. From here on out, it looks like running backs will be called running backs and wide receivers will be called receivers. On that note, senior-to-be Tony Pierson and red-shirt freshman Colin Spencer both are listed as wide receivers.

— Junior running back Darrian Miller is on the roster and reported for Tuesday’s first day of spring semester classes.

— Tight end Kent Taylor, who transferred to KU from Florida and will have to sit out the 2014 season, is not yet listed on the roster but is in town. After taking his official visit last weekend, Taylor returned to Florida with his family on Sunday per NCAA rules and then came back to Lawrence on Monday. He took in Monday’s KU hoops game with linebackers Ben Heeney and Schyler Miles.

— Mid-year signees Ronnie Davis (CB), Keyon Haughton (OL) and Anthony “Fish” Smithson (S) all are listed on the roster and are in town for the start of the spring semester. Davis is slated to wear No. 23, Haughton will wear No. 70 and Smithson No. 9.

— Position changes of note: Former cornerback Greg Allen is now a nickelback; former Buck Ben Goodman is now a defensive lineman; former linebacker Kellen Ash is now listed as a Buck.

I'm glad that the staff has made a move with Admire. He deserves a chance to contribute and clearly wasn't going to be very helpful in the middle of the OL.

Tait, are you going to try to get an interview with him to ask how/when the decision was made to change positions? If he's truly already lost 50 pounds then the decision may have been already made before the end of the 2013 season.

You bet. Won't be until spring ball starts, but it'll be interesting to hear from him about it. The more I think about the move, the more I think he could really help KU as a fullback, provided Reagan's offense has use for such a player.

I do agree, though, about the 50 pounds. It's not like he lost the 50 in the past six weeks. It probably started toward the end of 2013.

What I mean by that, is the total number that they can take in this class is still 26. Just losing these guys does not bump that up to 29 automatically. But there are always ways to try to see if you can count guys back toward other classes and things like that, so you never know how much this kind of thing could help.

One thing it could do is free up a scholarship for a guy like Joe Gibson, who came as a walk-on and now might be the No. 1 option at center heading into the spring.